Prodrive is, currently and secretly, working on a hot version of the MINI Countryman.

The Banbury-based engineering firm runs MINI’s Works World Rally Championship outfit, and team principal and Prodrive boss Dave Richards, has previously told Autocar that Prodrive-tuned Mini road cars were possible.

“MINI obviously has the Cooper and John Cooper Works brands and it will want to work out ways of harnessing this campaign, its rally heritage and those giant-killing acts of the 1960s through its road cars,” said Richards.

The heavily modified all-wheel-drive Cooper S Countryman is said to feature a muscular body kit that includes a large fixed carbon fibre wing, along with custom unbranded alloy wheels.

Performance upgrades include a Prodrive-branded Milltek exhaust and a Superchips-tuned version of the Cooper S’s turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol engine. Sources have indicated that the car had run 230bhp on the dyno, but Superchips is still hoping for even more power, and a larger turbo was under consideration.

MINI has yet to officially reveal the range-topping Countryman JCW performance model.

Source: Autocar